Kantian Deontology

Deontology

Deontology is an ethical theory which implies that our actions are to be determined,
whether good or bad, according to a set of rules or moral duties. It came from the
Greek word Ντέον (deon) which means “necessary” or “duty.” Hence, deontology is
also called duty ethics. Immanuel Kant is said to be the main proponent of this ethical
system.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
German philosopher Immanuel Kant was born on April 22, 1724, in Konigsberg,
Prussia. As a student, he went to the University of Konigsberg and obtained his
bachelor and post-graduate degrees. In 1779, he was appointed chair of logic and
metaphysics in the same university. On February 12, 1804, just short of
his 80th birthday, he died. Kant influenced different philosophers who followed him.
His works on epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion
were influential to the rise of German Idealism. His legacy was greatly appreciated by
his peers and successors and regarded him as one of the greatest philosophers who
lived. Kant’s most famous works are the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), the Critique
of Practical Reason (1788), and the Critique of Judgment (1790).
Kant’s philosophy seeks to answer three fundamental questions: “What can I know?”
“What I ought to do?” and “What can I hope for?”. These three questions correspond
to each major branch of philosophy during Kant’s time, namely, epistemology which
deals with the nature of knowledge, ethics or moral philosophy, and philosophy of
religion. In this module, we will focus on Kant’s ethics.
Unlike the Divine Command Theory and the natural law ethics, Kantian ethics does not
make God as the basis or foundation of morality. Nor does it assume that there is a
universal principle of morality as the natural law ethics believes. Instead, Kant
believes that there is a pure a priori that is independent of experience or divine
influence, ethics of duty. The categorical imperative is his ultimate moral rule founded
on the human person’s sheer rationality and autonomy.
Kant’s Fundamental Principles
Kant writes in the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), that he
seeks a single and universal law of moral action that is neither dictated by some
universal moral principle as in the case of natural law nor some divine reality as in the
case of the Divine Command Theory. Instead, what Kant seeks to establish is a moral
system dictated by reason alone.

Criteria for Ethical Judgments

When Kant stated that two things fill our mind, the “starry heavens above me and the
moral law within me,” he was referring to the innate human tendency to inquire about
the nature of reality and morality. More importantly, Kant suggests that ethical
judgment can be found solely within the human person with no external factors
that dictate our understanding of the moral law. He enumerates reason, good will, and
duty as the criteria for his proposed ethical system. Kant writes, “there is no possibility
of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as
good without qualification, except a good will.” What Kant means by this statement is
that no object or end is intrinsically and universally good. Things we
normally consider as good in themselves such as happiness, love, or
health are compatible with moral wrong. In other words, these objects of morality can
be corrupted. According to Kant, we can love, desire to be happy or healthy all for the
wrong reasons. Even belief in God, for Kant, cannot serve as the basis of morality for
we can believe in God for the wrong reasons. History is replete of people who did
atrocious acts all in the name of God. If what is morally right cannot be understood in
terms of these ends, what, then, can serve as the foundation of morality that is
immune to moral wrong? Kant believes that morality is the conformity of act to a rule.
In other words, we must do what is right because it is the right action and not for any
other reason or end. We must act not according to duty but from or because of duty.
In Kant’s ethical system, consequences are morally irrelevant because we cannot
judge the morality of an act based on its consequences or ends.

Reason: Kant believed that other moral principles, such as

Aristotle’s ευδαιμονία (eudaimonia) or Mills’ utilitarianism, were not fundamental
enough and not immune to moral wrong. Instead, the ultimate moral law must be
derived from reason alone—not from God nor from any ends such as happiness, love,
or utility. Instead, Kant proposes that human beings derive their moral principle from
rationality alone, independent of divine law, or natural law, and any empirical
conditions. By our sheer rationality, we can make rules of morality and judge whether
our acts are moral or not based on the rules we make. It follows, therefore, that
since our action is not based on any conditions, it must be abstract and capable of
being applied anywhere and anytime, like a mathematical formula that can be
replaced by numerical equivalence. Hence, it is not love, as Christian believers would
argue, as the greatest of all virtue or the highest of all moral acts. Rather, it is our
ability to subject ourselves to a rule.
Good Will: Kant’s work the Ground of the Metaphysics of Morals opens with the most
quoted line, “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even
beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.” Kant
would agree that the concept of a good will is a necessary implication of a morality
that is unconditioned, that is, a moral system not anchored on some divine reality or
objective morality as in the case of the Divine Command Theory and natural law
ethics. Only in a moral system where the sole act of being moral serves as the
foundation of morality independent of any external conditions can a good without
limitation, the good will, be understood. The rest simply do not count. For instance,
the concept of power is good only insofar as it is wielded not for selfish purposes or for
the use of evil. Or, as in the case of love, it can serve as the foundation of morality
only if it is unselfish and sacrificial. After all, we can love for the wrong reasons. Only
in a moral system that is unconditioned can the concept of a good will thrive because
only in the concept of a good will can we anchor moral acts without qualification,
meaning that we are able to act with no other ulterior motives other than to will the
good for others. In other words, a good will is a will that is good in and of itself.
Kant tells us that actions must not be motivated by consequences but by simply our
desire to do our duty. Hence, good will is a will that urges us to do what is good
because it is our duty to conform to moral laws.
Honestly, we know that we do not always act because of our good will. Sometimes, we
act because of our selfish desires. However, Kant tells us that good will is the only way
to be moral. For example, you are failing in a subject and you need to get a perfect
score in your last quiz for you to pass. Knowing the consequences of not perfecting
your quiz, you are tempted to cheat. However, because of your good will, you studied
hard and took the test banking on what you learned and reviewed. You took
the quiz honestly and did not succumb to cheating.
In the example above, we can see that the decision made was the right thing to
do. This situation simply shows that good will does not help a person look at the
consequences of his or her actions but the motive that doing good is the right thing to
do. Hence, preparing for a test instead of cheating is an act of good
will; the decision to review is moral because doing so respects the moral rules which
is simply choosing what is right.
The example above tells us that actions must not be motivated by consequences but
by simply doing our duty. Hence, good will is a will that urges us to do what is good
because it is our duty to conform to moral laws.
Duty: Kant believes that good will is determined by the demands of the moral law.
Kant states, “Unmixed with the alien element of added empirical inducements, the
pure thought of duty, and in general of the moral law, has by way of reason alone an
influence on the human heart.” What Kant suggests is that our moral obligations come
in the form of duty to do the right thing. As we soon realize that the only good without
limitation or qualification is the good will, we also learn that good will can only be
expressed in the form of duty if morality is to be unconditioned and independent of
any external influence. Simply, we do good not because it is convenient or not
because we are afraid of the punishment if we do not do so. Rather, we do good
simply because it is the right thing to do.

Moreover, you act not because you want to but because you have to. Minsan may
mga bagay na napakahirap gawin dahil labag sa loob natin pero kailangan gawin dahil
ito ang tama. Hence, a person acting in accordance with duty is not motivated by any
other factors. This person is simply motivated by the sole intention of doing what is
right because this is what the moral law demands.
For example, you are a tricycle driver and you hit a luxury car in a rotonda or a
roundabout. Since you are a tricycle driver, your initial response is that you do not
have enough money to pay for the damage that you caused. By looking at the owner
of the car, you thought of driving away since you think that that person has a lot of
money because he drives a luxury car. However, because you know that the right
thing to do is to stop and converse with the driver, you did not run away. While talking
with each other, the driver of the car said that he understood your situation and
would let you pay a little amount. He did not cause you any further harm since he did
not charge you with a huge amount of money nor sue you for hit and run. After your
conversation, you both settled and went home with relief.
What lesson can we get in this situation? The means do not justify the ends. How is
this? If you drive away to not be caught, you do not do the right thing. In this situation
of conversing with the driver, you did your moral duty and complied with the moral
demands. In brief, acting in accordance with duty urges us to obey the moral law even
if it is not what we want. We just simply do our moral duty because it is the right thing
to do. There must not be any other intentions or qualifications. Simply, we do what is
right.

Categorical Imperative

The categorical imperative serves as the foundation of an objective morality in Kant's

ethical system. It addresses the question “how do we know that our moral acts are not
just a subjective expression of our wills and personal desires?”
Hypothetical and Categorical Imperatives: Kant conceives of human agency, that
is, human actions, in terms of the interaction of three faculties of the mind, namely,
reason, desire, and will. The interaction among the three faculties results in two kinds
of “imperatives,” or rules that we give ourselves. The first imperative is guided by our
inclination or desire which Kant calls the natural or animal part of us. Kant terms this
the hypothetical imperative. Hypothetical imperative is a command of reason in
which we do an act because we can get something in return for doing so. It is a
conditional command. For example, a person works hard because s/he wants to
become rich. The second imperative is guided by reason which gives us laws and the
belief that the morality of our acts depends on these laws. Kant calls this the
categorical imperative. In the second imperative, a person does not look at the
possible consequences or rewards in his or her action. Rather, s/he does something
because it is an absolute command which tells him or her to always choose what is
right.
The Categorical Imperative: Kant suggests that there is only one categorical
imperative: act so that you can will the maxim of your act to be universal law. A
person can act only as s/he would all others to. This moral formula may sound
abstract. As a matter of fact, it is, because it is the product of reason alone. If reason
alone dictates the moral law, then, it must be universal, unaffected by any desire or
inclination. It is as if Kant is telling us that there is no specific moral rule as such but
that we must act according to a rule of reason. This universalizability of the
categorical imperative is one way to state the categorical imperative. The other two is
to act so as to treat rational beings as ends in themselves and never as means and to
act only in accord with the intention that every human being has a will that is self-
legislating; that is, every human being has the autonomy or freedom to create his or
her own rules of morality. Finally, Kant tells us that if we act in conformity with one of
these formulations, we obey all of them.

In this module, we veered away from ethical systems based on God and the natural
law. Instead, we introduced an ethical system that is solely humanistic and based on
mere duty. Such an ethics, known as deontology, implies that all our moral actions are
anchored on the fact that it is simply right to do the right thing not because of any
impending punishment or reward. The consequences of Kantian ethics are enormous
both in Kant’s time and our town time. In Kant’s time, he was able to personalize and
subjectivize morality, severing it from any moral authority, such as religion and
society, and relegating it to the individual person by the merit of his or her freedom
and dignity not be treated as means but as an end. Kant’s ideas also affected our own
way of thinking particularly in the realm of human rights reflections in that we saw
human beings as deserving of dignity or respect not on the merits of their deeds but
simply because of being a human being. Perhaps the most important lesson that we
may draw from Immanuel Kant’s radical take on ethics is that we do not need to be
good simply because we fear God’s punishment or we await some kind of reward or
recognition but simply because being good is just part of being human.